Boy, 12, charged in fatal stabbing of 9-year-old

KENTWOOD, Mich. — A 9-year-old boy repeatedly stabbed by a 12-year-old boy at a Michigan playground ran screaming to his home and collapsed bleeding on his porch before dying at a hospital a short time later, witnesses and police said Tuesday.

Witnesses said the 12-year-old went to a nearby home after the Monday evening attack on Michael Conner Verkerke, called 911 and calmly turned himself in, then tried to flag down officers when they arrived.

The 12-year-old pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in juvenile court Tuesday, according to his attorney. He was ordered held in a juvenile detention center until a hearing next week. A motive for the attack still was being investigated, Kentwood police Chief Thomas Hillen said.

Witnesses told investigators that four children were playing in the Pinebrook Village mobile home park in the western Michigan city of Kentwood when one of them, for unknown reasons, pulled a knife and stabbed the boy in the back.

Associated Press

Police in Kentwood, Mich., investigate a stabbing at a playground on Monday.

TAMPA — Even before his trial officially began, Deandre Gilmore had planted his gaze on the floor of Judge Samantha Ward's courtroom Monday, taking a deep breath and shifting in his seat as a pool of 60 potential jurors learned of his charges.

In an expected move, the University of Louisville Athletic Association's Board of Directors on Monday voted unanimously to fire men's basketball coach Rick Pitino. The decision came 19 days after Louisville acknowledged that its men's basketball program was being investigated as part of a federal corruption probe and …

Unable to persuade Congress to kill the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump appears determined to do the dirty work himself. The president's unilateral actions are aimed at driving up premiums, steering healthy people away from the federal marketplace and ensuring his inaccurate description of the law as a …